Communication services, particularly wide range communication services also termed telecommunication services, are extremely important to businesses and individuals. Especially connections via mobile devices such as handhelds, tablets or laptops are becoming increasingly important. They offer communication links between people at any time, and at any distance no matter how far. Not only people need to communicate but also other devices such as cars or trains are exchanging information for a variety of reasons and in a variety of ways. Apart from enabling machine to machine communication and voice calls, communication services allow people to connect with each other in a variety of ways, including video conferencing, email and text messaging. They give access to an abundance of information via the World Wide Web, and cover such basic things as emergency calls as well.
It can be seen that, over the decades, especially cellular communication is driven by two opposing principles: cooperation and competition. A lot of technical issues arising for example from interference between the electromagnetic signals used in cellular networks can be overcome using suitable synchronization (cooperation), and this applies to coverage as well: a cellular network does usually not provide perfect coverage for example over the whole area of Germany. It can be assumed that one cellular network and another cellular network which are deployed within Germany would provide good coverage in possibly different areas of Germany. It would be good if a telecommunication device could fluently switch between the two networks. This would require cooperation between the two networks.
It is however a tragedy of the human nature only to need competition in order to derive best results. Therefore, telecommunication network providers are usually forced to compete by the law. This necessitates a restriction of the flow of information in between their networks, and that again complicates synchronization and the fluent transition of mobile devices.
The present invention overcomes one mayor problem by allowing telecommunication networks to interact with one another using a pre-defined protocol containing technical specifications. The protocol can be made to obey the laws in each country, so as to allow the maximum amount of cooperation without any limitation on competition.
A communication device is a device through which at least some communication service can be used. A mobile communication device is any communication device that is able to send or receive information, at least, via electromagnetic waves and, optionally, via cable. A very common example of a mobile communication device is a handheld device.
Mobile communications is a part of communications where parts of the physical distance between the communicating parties are bridged via electromagnetic wave propagation which is not physically restricted via the boundaries of a cable. As mobile communications becomes more and more available, businesses as well as the private lives of people start to depend more and more on the availability of such services. At the same time more and more data gets routed through mobile networks, the data amount routed growing at an exponential rate. This increases the probability of not being able to get an important service when necessary.
A heterogeneous network is a network where different access technologies may be used for the same task and/or the different tasks, and where the choice of one access technology may not only depend on the information to be transmitted but also on the availability of the various technologies at a given moment.
Communication networks are composed of multiple communication network nodes. Each communication network node can be connected with the rest of the network via interfaces that enable the exchange of information. Different modes of transmitting information are possible. For example these are direct communication links which are used solely between two communication network nodes. Another example is broadcast links that enable a multiplicity of communication network nodes to receive information from one communication network node. It is also possible that a communication network node other than the intended receiving communication network nodes extracts part or all of the information that is being transmitted by a communication network node (eavesdropping).
In today's communication networks there are two predominant types of interfaces: Air interface and backbone.
A backbone connection typically connects communication network nodes that exchange information amongst each other in a controlled fashion and that are all contained in one sub network which is legally owned, leased or at least operated by one communication carrier or multiple carriers under certain service provision acknowledgements. A backbone connection is typically provided via cable or microwave link. Its main characteristic is that its endpoints are physically fixed.
An air interface connects communication network nodes within one network in a dynamic fashion. Examples of air interfaces are 2G, 3G or 4G. An air interface provides a flexible interface. The endpoints of a connection that is established via air interface are typically not physically fixed. Exceptions from this rule of thumb are given by microwave links. In today's networks, an air interface typically connects a base station to a mobile device.
The transmission of signals carrying information such as voice and data is carried out using electromagnetic waves. As is well known, such signals can be decomposed into linear combinations of other signals having that can be associated a number, which is their frequency. The transmission of radio signals is strictly limited by the law, so that for example one telecommunication provider may only be allowed to transmit signals that are not detectable on a huge portion of the spectrum: They are said to be bandlimited. A telecommunication carrier typically owns a license that allow him to use a variety of technologies and emit a variety of signals that are limited to a certain band. In that case one can as well say that said carrier owns a spectrum license (for said band).
Spectrum licenses are a highly valued good, and only their possession allows the operation of a telecommunication network.
The dynamics within communication networks have become so fast that it is not possible for a human being to keep track of the establishment and breakdown of individual connections that are made, especially those made via air interface.
The role of a node in a communication network node can be either one or even both of: providing service and requesting service also called taking service. Examples of communication network nodes comprise base stations, mobile devices, radio network controllers or the backbone. Another widely accepted separation is that into the radio access network and the core network. Future mobile networks will further diversify the picture by assembling large numbers of communication network nodes into a cloud radio access network.
Some communication network nodes can provide and take service at the same time. For example a communication network node (R) may serve as a relays: It receives information from one communication network node (A) and then sends this information to another communication network node (B). The transmission from (A) to (R) may be realized on a different connection, air interface or frequency than the one from (R) to (B).
The communication network nodes, also referred to simply as nodes thereafter, are typically organized within sub-networks (each sub-network belonging to a certain communication carrier). Within these sub-networks other distinctions may exist, for example a communication network node may be a mobile device, base station or radio network controller.
Within each (sub-)network, a hierarchy may exist that allows certain communication network nodes to control the behavior of other communication network nodes.
Services may have resource requirements. Throughout this specification, services having different resource requirements are considered different from each other. The resource requirements may, for instance, concern one or more of: real time requirement, overall data amount, duration, data rate, starting time, ending time of the service, maximal amount of jitter, overall data amount, duration, air interface, bandwidth, provision of a specific end-to-end connection (for example during a meeting, a highly prioritized connection may have to be available such as to contain virtual attendees). An important parameter of a service is the time at or during which it has to be delivered. This may be specified by a starting- and an ending date, but more complicated constructions such as periodic delivery (e.g. LTE air interface available each day in July 2015 from 12:00 to 16:00) are possible.
Another set of potentially important parameters are geographic boundaries.
Services are provided by nodes by carrying out signaling duties concerning the service.
A node may comprise a resource management configured for using resource requirements of a requested service, the service being requested by a user assigned to the node, for allocating communication resource such that the allocated communication resource does meet the resource requirements and the service can be provided by the node.
For example in order to deliver a service the service provider typically needs to be the owner of a spectrum license as well and the spectrum license needs to be written such that it allows the execution of the service.
In order to differentiate the transfer of signaling or service duties from resource trading one can imagine a very high wall (with a small door). The wall divides an area into a left side and a right side. In this area, a left node perfectly covers the left side of the wall and a right node the right side. In the picture described here, the signals of the left node are only poorly received on the right side and the signals of the right node are poorly received on the left side. Every user on one of the two sides is assigned to one of the two nodes. Users can and will change sides through the door. A user on the left side should receive its signals from the left node, even if it is assigned to the right node for example through a contract.
The present invention further aims to unify both resource trading and the trading of signaling duties or services. Speaking in terms of above picture, it may for example be that the left node has the right to operate on all radio frequencies between 1 and 2 GHz and the right one has the right to operate between 2 GHz and 3 Ghz. Then, if all users are located on the left side, they may all receive service from the left node but the left node's bandwidth could be exceeded. In that case, in order to deliver a service to all users the right node could grant the left node the right to use the frequencies from 2 to 3 GHz, thereby dramatically increasing the left nodes capability of providing service. Therefore, the user trading protocol may execute, use parts of or make reference to a further protocol that handles the allocation of resources between different telecommunication networks.
Prior art useful for understanding the invention is described in US2008/031192 A1 and US 2008/04081 A1.